Polymath, visionary and indefatigable change agent. Founder of Polymathica, a global community of intellectual sophistication, The Polymathic Institute, which promotes polymathic research, education, careers and lifestyles, The Polymath, a weekly PDF magazine of erudite analysis and commentary. Pages describe my original work.

Thursday, February 4, 2016

On Being a Polymathican

It is much easier to be born ordinary. It is much easier on our family and friends if our interests are ordinary, if our intellect is ordinary, if our habits are ordinary. While it is easier to be born ordinary, there are very real compensatory benefits when one is born, instead, a Polymathican. Our broad ranging interests mean that we have many more sources of joie de vivre. Our penchant for life long learning means that we have a much more nuanced, interesting world view that constantly surprises and delights us. So, of course, we rarely get bored.Like anyone else, the ambient culture enourages us to fit in. It is not uncommon for us to go through periods of life when we try. However, in the end, we were not born ordinary. As we mature, our growing erudition and refinement causes us to evolve progressively further from social norms. While that causes us to feel like strangers in a strange land within the normal social milieu, when we find each other, the rewards of being born extraordinary can be fully realized.Thus, there is Polymathica, a global community for us. While we are relatively small right now, with about 2,850 members on facebook and 87 members on our own social media platform, http://polymathica.network-maker.com, there are an estimated four million of us in Western civilization. That may sound like a number that falls within the definition of ordinary, but, in reality, we comprise less than 1/2 of 1% of the population.

It is far from easy to find that one in 200 especially since we don't wear signs on our chests. We are hard to find precisely because of our eclectic interests. We don't congregate in one place, the way sports fans or politiccal wonks might. Rather, we fly around the Internet, supping at many, many tables none of which are dominated by us.

We are not ordinary. Our social places will not be created by happenstance. They will not be created by others. We must create them ourselves and we must actively search for our own, or we will continue to be on our own.

Confounding our quest for life success is that we also very frequently belong to the Inappropriately Excluded. A significant reason for that is precisely because in virtually all productive environments we feel like strangers in a strange land and, more often than not, that is how others see us as well. Simply put, in nearly all productive environment, we are not just on the tail, we are a complete outlier. On a fundamental level, we just don't belon. So, by creating Polymathica, we are not only finding for ourselves a place of belonging, we are also taking the first step in a remediation strategy for the exclusion.

I cannot emphasize this enough. When one is born out of the ordinary, there is no strategy for single handedly achieving productive and lifestyle success. While the 99.5% of ordinary people around us cause us to feel like a lone wolf, our tools of life success begin with collaboration. So, Polymathica is not a nice to have. It is a must have.

As I say, America is headed for a divorce and Europe is not far behind. The political parties long ago ceased to be divergent political perspectives within a cohesive culture and have become tools of influence for competing cultures. So, listen to the political discourse. Does any of it resonate? For Polymathicans, it generally does not. That is why Polymathica, over the next few decades, must, and will, become a nascent Culture of Affluence. Consequently, not now, but in the not too distant future, we can actually build communities that express our outlook and values.

So, we start with smaller goals and as the Information Age civilization unfolds, we will have growing opportunities to make Polymathica something extraordinary and, for us, affirming. We are more inclined to live near the top of Maslow's Hierarchy and Polymathica will be one of our primary tools in achieving self-actualization, what I call A Finely Crafted Life.

So, if you have not already, register at Polymathica. If you have, then make friends, join groups, post your thoughts. You are literally building for yourself and the rest of us a more user friendly future.

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Experiment.com will be a useful tool in our goal of remediation for Polymaths and the inappropriately excluded. While this site provides a good format for funding independent research, it is not going to provide an adequate supply of funders. However, by utilizing our contacts in Polymathica we can move forward in the Polymathic Institute's goal to promote polymathic research and secondarily, polymathic careers.

Fundable.com for many this will be the best crowdfunding platform for equity offerings. Their charge is $179 per month. Of course, the payment processing fee of 3.2% to 3.7% is extra. Still, a three month, $500,000 offering will only have a total cost of around $18,000 to $20,000 far below the 9% to 10% of most platforms. Of course, like all equity funding sites, you will need to bring most of the investors yourself. That is where P.E.N. comes in.

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Career Advice

You can't earn a living telling people how things are or how they will be. You earn a living by feeding their confirmation bias. That is not a career to which one should aspire.

On Fools

I really have attempted to abide by the apostolic admonition to suffer fools gladly. However, in the end, there were just too many of them.

On Being Human

I was asked, 'In what way does human intellect differ from other animals in kind and not just in degree?' I answered, 'Only humans can ask that question.'

On Opinions

Those who say, 'That's just my opinion' rarely mean it. Those who say, 'That's just your opinion' almost always do.

IQ in Perspective

A guy once quoted to me, 'When a wise man points at a star the fool looks at his finger.'
I replied, 'True. But so does my dog and I love her dearly.
Let's not overly weigh intelligence in our assessments of worth.'

The First Principle of Information Age Political Philosophy

No person should be required to live under a body of laws, programs and policies that they consider to be fundamentally unjust.

How Markets Really Work

Perception is reality...until reality steps in and says, 'OK, enough!!!'

On the Mainstream News

Pitting a Left Wing lunatic against a Right Wing lunatic gets you a whole lot of pyrotechnics but absolutely no useful insights. You can't average them and find yourself in a defensible middle.

Knowing the Future

There has been no time in the last 200 years when the world thirty years hence was generally believable. Therefore, if someone tells you what the world will be like in thirty years and it seems reasonable, history says that they are wrong.

Make a Difference

I am interested in what you have done, what you are doing and what you will do. I am supremely indifferent to what you could do, but won't. Consequently, I don't care very much about your IQ.